IP

by sant0sk1 • 18 years ago

56 85 18 years ago

rms9• 18 years ago

Matt hasn't realized just how awesome piracy of music is if you are a member of a site like waffles.fm. It is much better than any legal music service. How could the RIAA compete with a mainstream waffles.fm?

ivankirigin7• 18 years ago

1. Get all your music for free. 2. log your usage. 3. Use a micropayments engine to slice out support.

You could dial the support up or down, maybe giving a disproportional amount to a certain band.

I think you're totally right: unlimited and immediate access to music is just better.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't directly support the artists.

The RIAA can't compete because they are fundamentally no longer part of the exchange. They add nothing. They continue through momentum, and will die soon.

rms9• 18 years ago

I support that model in general, but I'd much rather spend my money supporting live performance.

My favorite band is Radiohead. I didn't pay for their most recent album, because it didn't seem worth it. But I have paid over $200 to get 3 tickets to see them in concert this summer.

JesseAldridge2• 18 years ago

"I think you're totally right: unlimited and immediate access to music is just better."

Better for users, but not for producers.

Also, Matt has made the point that the vast majority of people are unwilling to donate when they don't have to.

JesseAldridge2• 18 years ago

Um... I think his point was that the RIAA wouldn't be able to compete. They would go out of business, likely taking a large portion of the music industry with them. Copyright laws prevent this from happening by preventing waffles.fm from going mainstream.

rms9• 18 years ago

Laws only have so much power... Oink was close to breaking into the mainstream before Interpol hit. Problem was that Oink was hosted in the UK. Waffles is hosted at the PRQ, so given sufficient server capacity they can dabble in the mainstream.

mattmaroon20• 18 years ago

I don't think the record labels as we know them now will survive even with copyright protection. As I said in an earlier post, funding will be provided by LiveNation and other live event promoters, who will use them as advertisements for the live shows.

mattmaroon20• 18 years ago

I use Rhapsody + FairUse4WM.

maxklein5• 18 years ago

That's an example of a long opinion piece with no point. Yes, Matt thinks that Copyright is actually useful, but what's your point? What's the action you want me to take? Why did I just read that - I know some people think copyright is okay, and some think that it's not okay, I did not have to read a long article with absolutely no new conclusions or any clear purpose.

You basically took a two sentence argument and stretched it to waste 3 minutes of my time.

zasz2• 18 years ago

I thought it had a lot of points. Defending the usefulness of copyright is a rare position on the internet, and he does give some actual reasons as to why copyright is useful (which is why his article is pointful rather than pointless)--it protects movies and books and other forms of creative content that are difficult to produce. He also takes some common defenses of copyright infringement (though he seems to reconstruct a couple as strawmen) and debunks them.

maxklein5• 18 years ago

Defending copyright is not a rare opinion in my world. The opinions he talks about there are like the most basic opinions that anyone trying to defend copyright would come up with. Nothing new at all.

It's as if he suddenly decided to think contrarian, then quickly wrote down the first thoughts he could think of.

I used to work in the development division of a very major recording company. Reading his article would be like a competent C++ programmer reading an article about why classes are useful - sure, the article may be correct, but it's pointless reading, except for people who have never even entertained that thought.

mattmaroon20• 18 years ago

It's a blog sir.

maxklein5• 18 years ago

Yo Matt, there's something I wanted to mention to you: I don't like your internet personality. I'm sure you're a very nice guy in person, but the way you brand yourself on the internet may not be giving quite the right impression you want to give. When I go on your site, your picture already gives an arrogant impression. Then your long articles are always perfect, not personal and discussing some issues in detail. Your internet personality comes across as very cold and somewhat arrogant, very little emotion, but without really conveying a strong sense of competence (which is what cold blogs are supposed to do).

So unless the effect I described is actually part of your personal branding strategy, you may want to rethink it. Because your brand has so many strong factors (name, picture, writings), that people who meet you will already be influenced by your projection of yourself, and this will color their perception of you.

All I'm saying is this: brand yourself a little bit warmer. People will like the impression better.

antiismist2• 18 years ago

Matt didn't get the viacom / youtube thing right. The DMCA provides a certain copyright-related safe harbor to online service providers, not just ISPs as he states. It is far from clear that youtube violated copyrights (that is the point of the litigation after all).

see: http://www.lessig.org/blog/2007/03/viacom_v_youtube.html

mattmaroon20• 18 years ago

I've read in a number of places (and this may be incorrect) that YouTube loses safe harbor by converting the videos from one format to another. Mark Cuban said that for one, and he has paid entertainment lawyers on staff.

abstractbill3• 18 years ago

Regardless of what the law says, this doesn't make sense.

An automated process blindly converts video from one format into another, and the company hosting the video suddenly has a duty to examine each and every video to look for potential infringements? I don't see how that follows at all.

Of course much of this law is untested, so any lawyer who makes claims about this is most likely just telling you what he thinks he can make a court believe.

astine2• 18 years ago

"My position is that it’s bad to criminalize natural behavior."

Violence is natural. It must be wrong to criminalize it.

Xlp-Thlplylp• 18 years ago

The historical evidence contradicts Matt Maroon's assertion, conventionally held by corporate intellectual monopolists, that copyrights "incent" [sic] creativity. See Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly for a detailed discussion.

mattmaroon20• 18 years ago

Why sic? It's in dictionaries.

aston5• 18 years ago

As is "irregardless." Not that anyone should begrudge you the use of either word.

abstractbill3• 18 years ago

Theft of a song is no more natural than theft of a car, so should we take those laws off the books too?

Please stop reading this comment Matt. You're stealing it from all the other people who want to read it.

mrtron2• 18 years ago

I would be willing to subscribe to your newsletter after reading your comment. Do you accept tipjoy?

Doesn't that blow your mind? Without this free medium and my 'theft' I would never have even known of abstractbill.

DougBTX2• 18 years ago

It's easy to test. Talk PG into putting a "tipjoy" link right beside "link" above every comment, and see what happens.

jfarmer• 18 years ago

Argh. I can't stand it when people conflate theft and copyright infringement. They are different things and it's lazy to treat them the same.

I tried to explain the differences as best as I could: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=207440

mrtron2• 18 years ago

For someone with the whole Internet as their resource, I would consider it beyond lazy. It is ignorant to treat them the same.

Copyright infringement has been responsible in increases for 'victim', both in exposure and revenues. Theft has never (that I am aware of) benefited the victim.

andreyf3• 18 years ago

Copyright infringement has been responsible in increases for 'victim...

Good example, but I think it's more important to point out where copyright and property law come from - that property is accepted in our society as a fundamental right, while copyright is monopoly power which our government may grant "for a limited time" "to promote the progress of useful arts".

See here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.article...

aston5• 18 years ago

As a sometimes musician, I really want someone to get a little more creative about the future of the music industry than just "make all of your money from live concerts." If the only musicians that can make money from recordings are ones who are so widely known and liked that people stealing their music online is irrelevant, the gap between "unknown" and "world famous" is basically impossible to cross.

markm• 18 years ago

My two cents:

The days of bands with 100 million fans will be replaced with one hundred bands having 1 million fans each.

And a few bands will have 1 billion fans in a 'flattening the curve' type motion where a band's talent is reflected by their popularity.

mattmaroon20• 18 years ago

This would seem to greatly disagree:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15wwlnidealab.t.h...

initself• 18 years ago

It's not impossible to cross with the advent of the 'Long Tail'. "1,000 True Fans" sounds like the new 'fame'.

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fan...

mattmaroon20• 18 years ago

The long tail, sadly, is mostly urban legend.

jdanieli2• 18 years ago

I'm pretty sure Pandora, etc. do give a small amount of money to the music owners each time the song is played. Is that not a source of revenue?

rms9• 18 years ago

I've been curious about this... do cafe/restaurants play a type of commercial satellite or digital radio intended to be played in stores? Or do they license the music themselves?

mchristoff2• 18 years ago

pandora pays royalties to soundexchange, the same way internet radio does. they in theory pay artists. although, i'd be interested in hearing how many artists actually get paid by sx and how much.

mattmaroon20• 18 years ago

Why? What's wrong with that business model. I would thinking giving away your recorded music would make it easier to cross that chasm.

And what do you play?

aston5• 18 years ago

I'm a percussionist mostly. I've played basically every genre, though I'm tending towards jazz lately.

I've been chewing on a long response for you here, but I think I'll save it for my blog. Instead, the short one: Touring only works at the superstar end of the scale, while recorded music revenue scales with the popularity of the artist. If the price of recorded music falls to zero, the labels don't have so much incentive to sign groups that aren't already at the touring-huge scale, since they're guaranteed to lose money on them...

Also, if just giving away your music made you popular, MTV Cribs would feature a lot more unsigned artists than it does now (namely, zero). Since labels are the only ones in the music industry with the money to do the marketing that's essentially a prerequisite to getting huge, it's in the best interest of the artists for the labels to have the freedom to sign groups that are promising, but not yet big. That freedom comes from CD sales.

axod• 18 years ago

I'd say as things change, volume will be a big issue. At the moment, an artist might bring out a new album each year. Which is kinda lazy. They make an album, and that makes them millions. How about they knuckle down and bring out a new album each month?

tx• 18 years ago

Matt, you're confusing IP with copyrights. I've dealt with IP lawyers in the past, and those two terms mean very different things. Copyright law is actually a very murky water and certain kind of fish (lawyers) feel pretty comfortable swimming in there. Early YouTube investors clearly knew what's coming and they're prepared, they've get their fishies ready.

But those are boring technicalities. What matters is the fundamental question if one can proclaim things like music, literature and images as his property. Technically I can repeat one of your sentences and you can accuse me of stealing.

That's all huge bullshit in my opinion. A song or a movie by itself shouldn't be copyrightable simply because it's not fair: it takes a lot of money to enforce such laws, this is why there are only a few privileged "customers" of this system. I can copy and distribute your blog posts all I want and there is nothing you'll (likely) do about it. This "copyright club" doesn't treat outsiders nicely, this is why Google (clearly and outsider) has been bit so often by those assholes, even something as awesome as their "Street View" is facing idiotic copyright complaints.

And, personally, I believe they will all fail and technology will overtake. We will not be paying for songs and movies, we'll be paying for comfortable theaters with nice sound and live concert performances. And someone with a law degree will have to find a real job.

andreyf3• 18 years ago

What matters is the fundamental question if one can proclaim things like music, literature and images as his property.

I believe the founders of the USA had this argument exactly, and this is what they came up with:

The Congress shall have power [...] to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

Sigh I wish more people read it: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.article...

In response to your question: no.

sgibat• 18 years ago

The good thing is that even if, starting tomorrow, no one makes any more money from recordings of music, music recordings will still exist. It may even thrive -- music creators, the ones still doing it for fun, suddenly feel a lifting of pressure to maximize or even create profit, and creativity shoots through the roof. A diversity of aural culture previously unknown, spread entirely by word of mouth and recommendation engines, dances mainstream, and everyone is the better for it.

andreyf3• 18 years ago

Often they phrase it as intellectual property that needs to be abandoned...

This is very silly ... such a position would only be taken by someone who doesn't understand the extent of IP.

IP is a huge blanket term, legally speaking. Patent law, copyright law, and trademark law have very little in common, but are all "IP". I haven't met anyone who seriously argued that we should get rid of patents...

As far as copyright goes, in my experience, most intelligent, impartial, and well-informed individuals tend to converge on the constitutional opinion: "Congress should promote the progress of useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors the exclusive right to their respective writings" (this is almost a direct quote from article 1, section 8).

The point of copyright law should be to promote progress of useful arts - I think this is the basis on which we should all agree. The term "intellectual property" muddies the discussion because one's right to property is a fundamental right, whereas one's power to restrict other's copying of your work is a power that congress can grant you for a limited time.

dejb• 18 years ago

>Without IP protection, the industries that have made our media our chief cultural export would be economically unfeasible.

I guess the 'our' is supposed to be Americans. No chance that someone outside the US might read the article or have views on the issue. There are actually those who would argue that this 'chief cultural export' hasn't entirely been a good thing but I guess they don't really count according to this article's viewpoint.

randallsquared• 18 years ago

"I don’t think our current copyright system is failing. I think that right now it’s working incredibly well. iTunes is proof of that. Despite the fact that anyone with an iPod could, with just a little effort, fill it with stolen music, millions of people are paying to do so. Without the laws we have in place, that would not happen."

Since you assert that people need not pay attention to the copyright laws which are in place, how does it follow that they'd stop buying music if the laws didn't exist? I would suggest that the success of the iTunes Store in the face of various well-known sharing methods suggests that it can compete without needing copyright law.

colortone• 18 years ago

IP is a non-rival good. I take your idea, you still have it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalrous

IP

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